HISTORY

09.09.11

Jacqueline Kennedy Spoke Ill of MLK

AP Photo

Shortly after her husband's assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy told an interviewer, as part of an oral-history project, that she disliked Martin Luther King Jr. so much she couldn't look at him. “I just can't see a picture of Martin Luther King without thinking, you know, that man's terrible,” said Kennedy. The first lady's dislike for King was based on information FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover claimed to have gotten from wiretaps on the civil-rights leader, such as the allegations that King hosted sex parties and made derogatory comments during her husband's funeral. It's unclear whether King actually said those things. Historian Michael Beschloss says Hoover appears to have been manipulating the Kennedys against King, and Caroline Kennedy said her mother's comments are evidence of Hoover's “poisonous” activities.